


Silence, My Brothers

by nostalgic_breton_girl



Category: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: Dark Brotherhood Questline, Dark Brotherhood sanctuary, Gen, The Purification
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:27:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27881478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nostalgic_breton_girl/pseuds/nostalgic_breton_girl
Summary: The Cheydinhal city guard raids the Dark Brotherhood sanctuary - only to find their job done for them.
Kudos: 11





	Silence, My Brothers

Of course a deathly silence reigned, in the abandoned house: nothing more appropriate, in what was widely believed to be a temple to Sithis, a mortal extension of the void. But it must be said that the Cheydinhal city guard had not expected the home of perhaps ten people to seem... _quite_ so devoid of life, and it was this bizarrity, more even than their rational fears, which made them shudder a little.

And the cellars were lit, but not promisingly: a dim and bloody light, colder yet than darkness; from everywhere, and yet from nowhere...

And there at last was the door. This had upon it the image of a skull, and where the shadows danced their morbid dance, it shifted, leered. Perhaps it recognised them, as people come to threaten what authority it had over what it guarded; perhaps it questioned them, and their purpose, just as they too rather questioned themselves, upon seeing it.

But this door had but one occupation, and – in a malicious sort of fashion – put its usual question to them:

‘What is the colour of night?’

The guards exchanged glances; silently elected an ambassador; and the man who had drawn the short straw stepped forwards and said:

‘Sanguine, my brother.’

Perhaps he had expected the door to seem surprised; perhaps he was already going mad, in this deathly half-light. The quicker among the guards caught what they believed to be a glimmer in the abyssal eyes of the skull; but they shook their heads, dismissed it, readied their weapons.

When the door opened, it was on a room not unlike a common cellar: but with that same dimmed light reigning, and the same silence, that horrid, stifling silence; and, faintly upon the lingering air, the smell of blood.

But there was nobody in this room, nor any scuffling behind the doors which led off it. The city guards were quite practised enough to prepare for an ambush: into formation, then, and slowly forwards –

They had come prepared for a battle, not whatever this was, this grim and silent march. Like they were the pallbearers of the already dead, and walking through a cemetery –

This was the Dark Brotherhood sanctuary: it was close enough.

There was a quiet accord, after a minute or two of listening, waiting, waiting upon tenterhooks; and the soldiers swung towards the left-hand door, and kicked it open, hoping to ambush their own ambush. A glint of swords, a battle-cry on the tips of their tongues –

Nought but silence: and, in the darkened room, a figure upon the floor. An Argonian – dead. Recently so. The guards might almost have called her a victim, if it were not for the fact that she wore the fabled armour of the Dark Brotherhood; judged from the faint smell of burning, the lack of violence, that she had been killed by magic.

And her own sword yet rested in her hand – clutched it, desperately; the blade unsullied.

An arched eyebrow, a mirrored perplexed glance; the soldiers could not speak, had nothing resembling an explanation.

So they abandoned this room, and this unfortunate corpse; went over to the next, found it to be a bedroom. But its occupants were doomed to eternal rest: a Bosmer, an Argonian, a Khajiit, all of them in dark armour, all of them fated to die by some powerful arcane flame. And thus the killers became the killed, in this bizarre reversal; and still not one of the guards could say anything, turned them over, verified that they were dead. If this were some dark trick –

Nobody had come running, on hearing the guards – whose footsteps were increasingly present, and who could no longer hold back their expressions of surprise; they began to suspect that their job was done for them. The murderers murdered... Yet who had killed them? These bodies were fresh, there might yet be a killer about. Who? What alliances had this killer? What purpose? How many were they, to have vanquished so many professional assassins?

A story of revenge, most likely; and what great and terrible revenge...

The guards were not much reassured by this task already completed: there were more questions yet, and still that horrible, horrible silence: more than the grave, more than the darkest crypt. Perhaps the door had meant that they enter, meant that they see this: perhaps they were being lured to their descent, to their doom...

The corridor at the far end of the room was far from inviting: and so one of the guards gained an assent from the others, cleared his throat, and called out:

‘Come quietly, and we may spare you your life.’

No response.

‘We are twenty-strong,’ he said, quite aware that they were but fifteen: ‘you would do better to come, than to fight.’

And his voice echoed briefly, off the far stone wall; became flat, disappeared.

‘Onwards, soldiers,’ the man said at length, and led the way, rather more confidently than he felt.

They passed the body of an Orc; one of a woman, likely a Breton; and at last came to a far chamber, almost entirely dark, in which a shadow moved, made them jump, made them brandish their swords –

A woman, alive; in the same armour as the others; standing over a body, a man in black almost unidentifiable underneath the terrible burns which scarred his face, charred his clothes: which had killed him. Terrible flames: flames which reared their heads in the woman’s eyes, which flickered, in her inhuman growl; which took form, became real, in her hands.

And she looked at all of them – deadlocked; none daring to make the first move; there was no blood upon her, but she had the wild look of a killer, and the flames were red upon her face. Terrible flames! she gathered them, built them, threatened; built them, that they caught in her eyes glistening beaded tears –

There was something very... _human_ in those tears, in the way she looked down at her unmoving fellow –

‘I warn you,’ said she, quietly: ‘to fear a killer remorseful.’

Then she was gone. Invisible, surely; the flames yet outlined, the smoke fading; almost imperceptible footsteps, past the guards, which they did not interrupt; then, silence, deep final silence. 


End file.
